Stylogenyin the style of Extinction Rebellion Graphics

Counterculture · 2018–present · Western Europe, Global / networked

Extinction Rebellion Graphics

Also known as XR graphics, XR Design Programme, XR Art Group style, Extinction Symbol graphics

The visual identity of Extinction Rebellion, the climate movement founded in Stroud in 2018, built by its volunteer Art Group as a free kit anyone may print. Heavy, slightly wonky capitals based on old wood type (FUCXED) sit on flat grounds from a twelve-colour palette of brights and light tints, beside woodcut skulls, bees, butterflies, birds and flowers, signed with the XR logotype and often the circled-hourglass Extinction Symbol, attributed to the street artist ESP, who dates it to 2011. Blocks, screens and free downloads let crowds print their own flags, banners, placards and patches.

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Huge distressed black letters reading “MORE TREES” fill the top of a bright green poster, above a large yellow-and-black bee with spread wings and radiating black lines. A small sprout emblem and the words “common ground” sit at the bottom.
AI-generated by Stylogeny from the style’s design choices. Not a real or historical work.

Use it with care

Extinction Rebellion is a living movement and the Extinction Symbol is credited to the artist ESP, who lends it to XR only for non-commercial use; XR says it will pursue anyone selling merchandise with it. Do not put the symbol, the XR logotype or a close imitation of the kit on products, fundraising, advertising or brand campaigns, and do not dress a company's climate message in XR's look to borrow its credibility.

01

How it works

  • Sign every piece the same way: one plain circled emblem and a short lowercase name reversed out of two slightly offset black bars, centred at the foot of the sheet, so a home-made poster, a flag or a patch reads as one movement across a crowd; make your own mark rather than reusing XR's, which are reserved for the movement.
  • Set the slogan in heavy, deliberately wonky wood-type capitals, stacked and scaled up to fill the width, and keep running text in one plain face (Crimson at first, now Karla).
  • Print in one or two flat inks, usually black, white or one strong colour such as magenta, on a single flat coloured ground: XR green first, then light tints such as lemon, pink and light blue, or stronger brights such as purple and fluorescent yellow-green; vary the colours freely across posters, flags and patches.
  • Picture death and nature as simple woodcuts or linocuts of skulls, skeletons, bees, butterflies, birds, fish and flowers, alone or repeated as a playful pattern, and use colour, play and dark humour instead of shock imagery.
  • Keep production low-tech and shared: cut the blocks in plywood or by CNC, give the files away, and let the public block-print onto flags, banners, placards and clothes they already own at street workshops.
  • Allow any non-commercial use and let local groups interpret the kit, but never put the symbol on merchandise or fundraising.

Stroud and London: Extinction Rebellion was founded in Stroud in May 2018 and launched with a Declaration of Rebellion outside Parliament on 31 October 2018. Its identity was built from 2018 by the volunteer XR Art Group (Clive Russell and Charlie Waterhouse of the London studio This Ain't Rock'n'Roll, the East London printmaker Miles Glyn, the designer Clare Farrell and others) around the Extinction Symbol, attributed to the East London street artist ESP, who dates it to 2011; local groups worldwide reuse the kit. The Art Group's Clive Russell names the Suffragettes' purple, green and white and the Atelier Populaire's silkscreen posters of 1968 as precedents (Crack, 2019). Later XR UK campaign packs, such as The Big One (2023), moved towards torn photo collage; this entry describes the Art Group's Design Programme look

02

Its design choices

From Stylogeny’s vocabulary of design choices: defining choices make the style, characteristic ones are usual, occasional ones turn up now and then.

Layout & composition
Space & hierarchy
Typography
Colour
Form & shape
Surface & texture
Ornament
Imagery
Medium & production
Tone & intent
Avoids
Gradients, Gloss & highlights, Chrome & 3D render, Photocopy & distress, 3D render, Script, Abundant decoration, Luxurious & glamorous

Palette

  • #14aa37
  • #000000
  • #f7ee6a
  • #ed9bc4
  • #75d0f1
  • #c80082

Typefaces

  • FUCXED Caps

    drawn by Clive Russell of This Ain't Rock'n'Roll from an old woodcut-style wood type he found on eBay, deliberately slightly wonky; XR's headline print face, download file FUCXED v4; FUCXED Latin is recommended for online graphics

  • Condensed wood type

    Adams of Rye, hand-set by Anthony Burrill for letterpress posters and banners, 2019

  • Crimson Text

    Sebastian Kosch, an open-licence oldstyle serif; running text in the 2018 Design Programme

  • Karla

    Jonny Pinhorn; XR's recommended text face after Crimson, for readability

Known for

  • ESP (Goldfrog ESP), the Extinction Symbol

    a circle for the planet around an hourglass warning that time is running out for many species, attributed to the East London street artist, who dates it to 2011 (the V&A flag records give January 2011), made before XR existed and lent to it for non-commercial use; the symbol-only digital files are in the V&A (CD.16-2019, CD.17-2019), beside the stacked and linear logo lockups of symbol plus logotype (CD.13-2019, CD.14-2019)

  • XR Art Group, Extinction Rebellion Design Programme (2018; later v1.1)

    logotype, FUCXED and Crimson, twelve colours and downloadable woodblock images; a digital copy is in the V&A (CD.15-2019), and Eye reported the PDF guide downloaded more than 9,000 times worldwide (2020)

  • Declaration of Rebellion leaflet (31 October 2018)

    an A3 fold-out from the first print run, screen-printed, title in green, the Extinction Symbol and logo at the foot, unfolding into a poster (V&A CD.1-2019)

  • XR Art Group printing blocks for public design workshops in autumn 2018 and spring 2019

    the Extinction Symbol machine-cut in plywood and the logotype CNC-milled in plastic on plywood (V&A CD.3-2019, CD.2-2019), with the green, pink and blue symbol flags on six-foot bamboo poles carried in autumn 2018 and April 2019 (V&A CD.10 to CD.12-2019)

  • Clive Russell and This Ain't Rock'n'Roll, 'Rebel', A3 poster on green paper

    the word in the FucXed Cap typeface across the full width, running text in an oldstyle serif, the symbol and logotype at the foot (c. 2019, V&A E.29-2021)

  • Anthony Burrill, 'Change is Now' (black on pink paper) and 'This is Change' (black on blue), letterpress posters with the XR logotype (c. 2019, V&A E.28-2021, E.37-2021); for the October 2019 Trafalgar Square action he set slogans in wood type from Adams of Rye for flyposters and banners

  • Posters on the XR kit (all c. 2019)

    'Non Violent', a woodcut flower head and a butterfly on yellow paper under a magenta title (designed by Miritte Ben Yitzchak, woodcuts by Miles Glyn, V&A E.27-2021); Arthur Stovell's skull made of bees, white on a near-black ground, printed by Glyn (E.32-2021); Baly Gaudin's snake partly shown as a skeleton, light blue and pink on purple (E.38-2021); and Stovell's flat line-drawn smiley face, black on yellow, with handcuffed Extinction Symbols for eyes (E.24-2021)

  • Block-printed textiles

    the 'Beehive Baby' flag, a humanoid bee in black on white cotton, and the 'Change is Coming' banner in dark pink on off-white artificial silk with a butterfly (2019, V&A B.71-2022, B.79-2022)

03

Make something in this style

Say what you need, and Stylogeny’s image studio draws it from Extinction Rebellion Graphics’s design choices and checks it against them. It takes about a minute, and you get a link to share.

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04

Where it comes from, and what it’s close to

Before it

The style it grew out of, and the styles it borrowed from.

This styleExtinction Rebellion Graphics2018–present · Western Europe, Global / networked

After it

The styles that grew out of it.

No later style in the atlas grew out of it yet.

Alike in its design choices

Styles that make many of the same choices, related or not, besides those above.

05

Sources

  1. Victoria and Albert Museum, Rapid Response Collecting, object records via collections.vam.ac.uk and api.vam.ac.uk: CD.1-2019 (Declaration of Rebellion leaflet, 31 October 2018, screen-printed, symbol and logo at the foot), CD.2-2019 and CD.3-2019 (printing blocks used at public design workshops in autumn 2018 and spring 2019; the symbol by ESP, 2011; the 'do-it-together' ethos), CD.5-2019 (fabric patch on surplus textile-trade fabric; logotype reversed out of two black rectangles), CD.10 to CD.12-2019 (green, pink and blue flags; the Extinction Symbol created in January 2011 by Goldfrog ESP), CD.13-2019 and CD.14-2019 ('Extinction Rebellion logo - digital file', stacked and linear: symbol plus logotype), CD.15-2019 (the Design Programme, 2018), CD.16-2019 and CD.17-2019 (the symbol alone, digital, designer ESP Goldfrog ESP, 'loaned to Extinction Rebellion'), E.24, E.27, E.28, E.29, E.32, E.37 and E.38-2021 (posters by Clive Russell, Anthony Burrill, Miritte Ben Yitzchak, Arthur Stovell and Baly Gaudin; woodcuts by Miles Glyn credited on E.27, Glyn as printmaker on E.32; E.24 a yellow and black smiley face with handcuffs for eyes), B.71-2022 and B.79-2022 (block-printed flag and banner)
  2. V&A, 'Home is where the art is: in discussion with printmaker Miles Glyn' (27 April 2026), https://www.vam.ac.uk/articles/home-is-where-the-art-is-in-discussion-with-printmaker-miles-glyn (Glyn, based in East London, 'one of the original members' of the XR Art Group, 'a coalition of graphic designers, artists and activists', from 2018 onwards; Clare Farrell a designer and co-founder of XR)
  3. Extinction Rebellion UK, Rebel Toolkit, 'Design' book, https://rebeltoolkit.extinctionrebellion.uk/books/design (Design Programme v1.1; FUCXED CAPS/LATIN for headlines and Crimson for main text, now Karla; FUCXED CAPS for headline print, file 'FUCXED v4.ttf', FUCXED LATIN 'best for online graphics'; main colours green #14aa37 and black, ten bright colours with hex values including Angry #c80082; non-commercial use; the symbol designed in 2011 by ESP; design packs 'We Want To Live' (Sep 2020), https://rebeltoolkit.extinctionrebellion.uk/books/design/page/we-want-to-live-sep-2020, and 'The Big One / 100 Days' (early 2023), https://rebeltoolkit.extinctionrebellion.uk/books/design/page/the-big-one-100-days-early-2023, cover images viewed); the same guide on Extinction Rebellion Belgium, https://www.extinctionrebellion.be/en/xr-visual-identity-and-design-guide
  4. Emily Gosling, 'Extinction Rebellion on its striking protest graphics', Creative Review, 16 April 2019, https://www.creativereview.co.uk/extinction-rebellion-on-its-striking-protest-graphics/ (Clive Russell of This Ain't Rock'n'Roll leads the Art Group; the font 'based on a woodcut type he found on eBay', 'deliberately slightly wonky', 'without going down the hackneyed distressed route'; silkscreen, linocut and a relief press at Oxford Circus; 'bright colours and playful patterning' instead of shock value)
  5. Augusta Pownall, 'V&A adds physical and digital objects from Extinction Rebellion group to its collection', Dezeen, 29 July 2019, https://www.dezeen.com/2019/07/29/va-extinction-rebellion-acquisition-design-news/ (symbol, logotype, a palette of 12 bright colours influenced by Eduardo Paolozzi, and the fonts FUCXED and Crimson)
  6. John L. Walters, 'Extinction Rebellion: truth works', Eye no. 100, vol. 25, 2020, https://eyemagazine.com/feature/article/extinction-rebellion-truth-works (Art Group members Charlie Waterhouse, Clare Farrell and Clive Russell; Miles Glyn credited as illustrator of the linocuts of fish and birds; Fucxed Caps and Crimson; 'strong, often fluorescent colours'; skulls as 'a modern update on the heraldic'; the design guide downloaded 9,000-plus times)
  7. Rachael Steven, 'Anthony Burrill lends his support to Extinction Rebellion', Creative Review, 10 October 2019, https://www.creativereview.co.uk/anthony-burrill-lends-his-support-to-extinction-rebellion/ (wood type from Adams of Rye; flyposters and banners; open-source templates)
  8. Josie Thaddeus-Johns, 'How Extinction Rebellion's graphic design amplified their year of radical activism', Crack Magazine, 19 December 2019, https://crackmagazine.net/article/long-reads/extinction-rebellion-graphic-design-activism/ (the typeface based on old wood type; ESP's permission on condition of no commercial use; Russell cites the Suffragettes' purple, green and white and the Atelier Populaire's silk-screened posters of the 1968 Paris protests as precedents)
  9. Wikipedia, 'Extinction Rebellion' (founded in Stroud in May 2018; Declaration of Rebellion outside Parliament on 31 October 2018; the circled hourglass 'extinction symbol')
  10. Wikipedia, 'Extinction symbol', https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extinction_symbol (attributed to the anonymous East London artist Goldfrog ESP, who told Ecohustler he drew it at the start of 2011; the lead dates it 'to at least 2012'; the Guardian, 2019: 'Where the symbol has come from is something of a mystery'; before XR, ESP chalked it on a wall in Brick Lane and put up posters and tiles around East London)
  11. Google Fonts metadata for Crimson Text (designer Sebastian Kosch, OFL) and Karla (designer Jonny Pinhorn, OFL), https://github.com/google/fonts; Crimson repository, https://github.com/skosch/Crimson (first released 2010, 'in the tradition of beautiful oldstyle type')

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